CHISINAU -- The pro-Europe ruling party of Moldova hailed its major victory over the Russia-friendly opposition in a weekend election, a win that will keep the small, impoverished nation on a European path instead of drifting back toward the Kremlin.
According to preliminary results, President Maia Sandu's Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) had just over 50 percent of the vote to take 55 of parliament's 101 seats. The pro-Russia Patriotic Bloc placed second with 24.6 percent, according to the country’s election commission, taking 26 seats. Only five parties recorded enough votes to gain seats in the legislature.
More than 1.5 million Moldovans cast ballots in the elections amid widespread reports of campaign meddling by the Kremlin, which denied the allegations.
"Russia threw everything dirty it had into the fight... It's not only PAS that won the elections, the people won," Igor Grosu, leader of PAS, told reporters on September 29.
Sandu is now tasked with nominating a prime minister -- widely expected to be incumbent Dorin Recean -- who can then try to form a new government.
Ukraine War Has Hit Moldovan Economy
The Ukraine conflict, Europe's largest and deadliest since World War II, has hit Moldova's economy hard, disrupting trade and driving up energy prices to trigger a spike in inflation.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin's online army of disinformation bots has used fake accounts and networks, often AI-generated, to flood social media with pro-Russian narratives and unsubstantiated claims of fraud.
"Moldova is the only democratic country in the region where the ruling party, after four years in power and despite the country going through major crises — COVID, Russia’s war of aggression, the refugee crisis — has not paid an electoral price, almost preserving its number of parliamentary seats," Armand Gosu, a professor of political science at the University of Bucharest, told RFE/RL's Moldovan service.
"It is an incredible achievement for Maia Sandu, who has practically secured everything she wanted in this election year. She also enjoyed full support from foreign capitals, which was only natural given that Russia is, in fact, waging a hybrid war against the West," he added.
The local human rights watchdog Promo-LEX reported hundreds of election incidents, including group voting, electoral advertising inside polling stations, organized voter transportation, and breaches of voting secrecy.
Bomb threats at several polling stations inside and outside Moldova were reported throughout the day. The incidents occurred in Italy, Romania, Spain, and the United States.
"People want democracy, a European standard of living and peace. Things that are impossible with Russia," said Watchdog.md, a political think tank based in Chisinau.
"It was a long and hard fight, but Moldovans have proven that they are a people who know how to choose the wheat from the chaff even when bombarded with lies and the most sophisticated manipulations."
The Kremlin has repeatedly accused Moldova of "anti-Russian hysteria" and has denied it is interfering in what Sandu has called the "most consequential election" in her country's history.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on September 29 that "hundreds of thousands of Moldovans were deprived of the opportunity to vote in the Russian Federation, due to the fact that only two polling stations were open to them."
But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which had a mission group on the ground to monitor the proceedings, said the elections were "competitive and offered voters a clear choice between political alternatives, but the process was marred by serious cases of foreign interference, illegal funding, cyberattacks and widespread disinformation."
The stakes were indeed monumental in a vote that was very much seen as a choice between Brussels and Moscow. And neither side made any secrets about who they were backing.
Reaction from the international community was decidedly positive for Moldova remaining on its path toward the EU, with European Council chief Antonio Costa saying the country had chosen a "European future."
Ukraine, which has been coupled with Moldova during the EU accession process so far, also hailed the result, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying the Kremlin "failed to destabilize Moldova even after spending huge, huge resources to undermine it and to corrupt whoever they could."
Chisinau and Brussels are ready to open negotiations on all 33 enlargement chapters. It can go fast as the EU is keen to add at least a few more members both from the Western Balkans and the east before the next European elections in 2029.
